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Saskatchewan Mining

Agrium Inc, Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc in advanced merger talks: sources – by Ed Hammond, Matthew Monks and Dinesh Nair (Bloomberg News/Financial Post – August 30, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., the world’s second-largest producer of its namesake fertilizer, and Agrium Inc. are planning to merge, people familiar with the matter said, as the companies battle falling prices and a decline in spending from farmers.

The combination could be announced as soon as next week, the people said, asking not to be identified because the deliberations are private. No final decisions have been made and the Canadian companies could decide against a deal, they said.

Potash has a market capitalization of about US$14.6 billion while Agrium is valued at about US$13.2 billion. Both companies surged 12 per cent in New York trading on Tuesday. Other fertilizer producers, including Intrepid Potash Inc. and CF Industries Holdings Inc., also jumped.

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[Uranium City] ATHABASKA’S ATOM BOOM – by Ronald Schiller (MACLEAN’S Magazine – March 1, 1954)

http://www.macleans.ca/

Uranium City, Sask., can’t afford the time to develop the social graces— companies are formed in the beer parlor, women are outnumbered fifty to one, there’s no plumbing, and every man you meet wants to let you in on his own private bonanza

ONE DAY in the summer of 1952 Gilbert LaBine, the almost legendary Toronto mining millionaire who discovered the original deposit of pitchblende on Great Bear Lake, received a radiogram in Toronto from young geologist Albert Zeemel at Lake Athabaska in northern Saskatchewan. “Come quick,” the message read, “I’ve shot an elephant.”

Although LaBine is aware that there are no elephants in the northern wilds, he chartered a plane immediately and flew to Lake Athabaska. Zeemel strapped a Geiger counter to his boss’ hack, clapped a set of earphones on his head and conducted him to Crackingstone Peninsula. There LaBine heard a crackling roar in his ears like a thousand eggs frying in a pan.

Wherever he walked -for three days the sputtering continued, sometimes fading to a whisper, sometimes rising to a howl, but never stopping. Finally he look the phones from his tingling ears and exulted: “It’s an elephant, all right! Biggest one I’ve ever seen.”

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Commissioning of Legacy potash mine underway: K+S (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – August 24, 2016)

http://thestarphoenix.com/

Just over a month after a major accident derailed K+S Potash Canada’s plan to bring its Legacy solution mine into production by the end of the year, the company has begun commissioning the massive $4.1 billion potash project.

“Legacy will make an important contribution to the future viability of K+S,” Ralf Bethke, chairman of the supervisory board of K+S AG, K+S Potash Canada’s parent company, said in a statement.

“The new plant will ensure that the company has access to high-grade resources for generations and will strengthen the position of K+S on the international potash market sustainably.”

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Second worker this month injured at Agrium’s Vanscoy potash mine – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – August 23, 2016)

http://thestarphoenix.com/

A miner was airlifted to hospital in Saskatoon Sunday morning after suffering major injuries in the second underground accident this month at Agrium Inc.’s Vanscoy potash mine.

“He had serious injuries and had some surgery (Sunday) and he’s recovering from that surgery right now,” said Todd Steen, general manager of the mine, which is located about 30 kilometres southwest of Saskatoon.

Details about what caused the accident will be available when an investigation is complete, but it is “not related” to the Aug. 8 incident that led to the death of 29-year-old Chad Wiklun, Steen said. “It’s very unfortunate that we had another incident here, and we want to make sure we don’t have any more, and we want to make sure we get to the bottom of these.”

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New CEO, directors at Encanto could advance potash project at Muskowekwan First Nation – by Bruce Johnston (Regina Leader-Post – August 22, 2016)

http://leaderpost.com/

A big shakeup at Encanto Potash Corp., which saw the CEO replaced and several directors resign from the company’s board of directors, could breathe new life into the company’s proposed $3-billion potash project at Muskowekwan First Nation, about 100 km northeast of Regina.

Norman Brewster, president and CEO of Cadillac Ventures Inc., was named CEO of Encanto earlier this month, replacing Jim Walchuk, who will stay on as an adviser. In addition to Brewster, six new directors were appointed to Encanto’s board of directors, including Muskowekwan First Nation Chief Reg Bellerose as First Nations special counsel. The company also moved its headquarters from Vancouver to Toronto.

Brewster said the financial markets haven’t been keen about financing new potash projects, especially since the price of potash plummeted from nearly US$900 a tonne in 2008 to less than US$200 per tonne in recent months.

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De Beers to begin drilling for diamonds in northern Saskatchewan – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – August 19, 2016)

http://thestarphoenix.com/

The world’s largest diamond mining company is expected to launch the next phase of its search for the precious stones in Northern Saskatchewan later this month.

After collecting samples and completing a low-level airborne survey, De Beers Canada Inc. will begin drilling “targets” on the 43,000-acre Northwest Athabasca Kimberlite Project it optioned from CanAlaska Uranium Ltd. earlier this year.

“I think it ticks the boxes for kimberlites, and if you’ve got kimberlites, you should be looking at them for diamonds,” said CanAlaska president and CEO Peter Dasler, referring to the igneous rock formation named for Kimberly, South Africa.

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BHP’s Saskatchewan potash project may be mothballed after $2.6-billion spent – by Jesse Riseborough (Bloomberg/Globe and Mail – August 17, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, may end up “mothballing” its Canadian potash project by the end of this decade after completing two shafts at a cost of about $2.6-billion.

The shafts at the giant potash deposit in Saskatchewan are now at a depth of about 600 metres, with a further 300 to 400 metres to go, chief executive officer Andrew Mackenzie told analysts and investors in London on Tuesday. Upon their completion in 2018 or 2019, the board will decide whether to build the mine, he said.

“It’s certainly perfectly possible, if at that time the market is not going to be ready for potash, say, in three years subsequently, that we could mothball the shafts once we’ve completed them,” Mackenzie said.

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BHP may mothball $2.6 billion Jansen potash project if prices remain weak – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – August 16, 2016)

http://www.mining.com/

World’s largest miner BHP Billiton (ASX, NYSE:BHP) (LON:BLT), the company behind the massive $2.6 billion (CAD $3.4 billion) Jansen potash project in Canada’s Saskatchewan province, may place it in the back burner if prices for the fertilizer ingredient don’t pick up by the end of the decade.

The company, which posted Tuesday its worst-ever annual loss, had already cut $130 million from the planned $330 million capital expenditure to develop and study the feasibility of the Jansen project in the current financial year.

And while BHP continues looking for a partner to finally take the venture off the ground, it now admits that the ongoing slump in potash prices may make it mothball the project.

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No quick end to potash doldrums in Saskatchewan as capacity ramps up – by Ian Bickis (CBC News Saskatchewan – August 15, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/

Oversupply leads to steep drop in potash prices

Oil’s downfall may get more attention but the potash industry that forms the bedrock of the Prairie mining industry is going through its own bust — and analysts say there’s no quick recovery in sight.

Potash, the lightly coloured mineral used as a crop fertilizer, is big business in Canada. Last year, producers dug out $6.7-billion worth of it, putting it second only to gold in terms of produced mineral value in the country.

But like oil, a wave of overbuilding and production increases in recent years — spurred by a spike in crop prices and a perceived demand that didn’t quite materialize — have left the market flooded with supply. “We have become grossly oversupplied with potash,” said David Asbridge, president of fertilizer advisory firm NPKFAS. “It’s going to take a while for us to dig ourselves out of this hole.”

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Sask. government approves Yancoal potash mine environmental assessment (CBC News Saskatchewan – August 9, 2016)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/

Company from China must meet new conditions before final approval for project near Southey

The government of Saskatchewan has approved an environmental assessment for a proposed Yancoal potash mine near Southey, Sask. The 3,000-page impact statement was prepared by the Chinese government-owned Yancoal. The statement, along with more than 800 submissions of public feedback, was reviewed by a Saskatchewan government panel.

Yancoal’s impact statement reviewed potential concerns, including local infrastructure, impact on ground water supply and air quality monitoring.

In order for the project to move forward, Yancoal must now meet a number of conditions, including creating a community involvement plan, forming a community advisory committee and committing to isolating the site from nearby waterways to “to ensure no off-site impacts to water quality,” the government said in a news release.

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Story of a forgotten town – by Alex Browne (Peace Arch News – August 5, 2016)

http://www.peacearchnews.com/

South Surrey writer Patricia Sandberg admits she has mining in her blood – although she claims her former career as a securities lawyer for mining companies came about more as a matter of accident, than design.

The fact remains that both her grandfather, Fred, and father Jack, were both deeply involved in the construction end of the mining industry and had an extended working relationship with 20th century Canadian prospector and mining pioneer Gilbert LaBine, first president of Eldorado Mining and Refining from the late 1920s until 1947.

The uranium boom of the late 1940s led LaBine to discover deposits of the metal on the shores of Lake Athabaska in Northern Saskatchewan. In the early 1950s he established Gunnar Mines there – and the company town that was built around it.

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Potash Corp cuts profit forecast and slashes dividend, but says market has hit bottom – by Peter Koven (Financial Post – July 29, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

The management team at Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. is developing a lengthy track record of being too optimistic about its industry’s prospects.

The Saskatoon-based company slashed its earnings guidance for the fifth time in six quarters on Thursday as its realized potash prices plunged to stunning lows. Potash Corp. also cut its quarterly dividend 60 per cent to US10 cents a share, the second time this year it has reduced the payout.

Yet despite the grim news, the fertilizer giant believes the potash market really has reached its “low point” this time, and better days are ahead.

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How Saskatchewan remade uranium mining – by Vladimir Basov (Mining.com – March 31, 2016)

http://www.mining.com/

String of high-grade high-tonnage discoveries reestablishes Canadian province as the world’s richest uranium jurisdiction

It’s a fact that new high-grade high-tonnage metal deposits are becoming extremely scarce, with falling grades and a lack of new world-class deposit discoveries. While it is next to impossible to imagine, for example, discovery of a new 200g/tonne 25 million ozt gold deposit, it is just has become a routine process for one particular commodity in one particular jurisdiction.

Athabasca sedimentary basin, located mainly in Canada’s Saskatchewan province, contains both high-grade and high-tonnage unique, a.k.a “unconformity” bonanza-type uranium deposits.

Just for comparison, Priargunsky underground uranium mine in Trans-Baikal region of Russia has approximately 0.15% grade of uranium in resources, while in Saskatchewan the world’s highest-grade and second-biggest Cigar Lake underground uranium mine boasts an average 15% grade of uranium in resources. And this is a mind-blowing 100-times difference.

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New China deal casts dim light on Canadian potash sector – by Ian McGugan (Globe and Mail – July 15, 2016)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A new deal to sell potash to Chinese buyers at a price dramatically lower than last year is being taken as good news by investors in Canadian potash stocks – a sign of just how far expectations for the sector have fallen.

Belaruskali, the major Belarusian producer, signed a contract to deliver potash to Chinese buyers for $219 (U.S.) a tonne, according to several industry observers on Thursday. Although the reported price is nearly one-third less than the $315 a tonne that was agreed upon last year, it is better than analysts had feared.

Still, the size of the decline demonstrates how much the market for the crop nutrient has deteriorated in recent months. It also underscores concerns about whether Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., one of this country’s most-followed dividend stocks, will be able to maintain its generous payout.

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Workers ‘blindsided’ by layoffs at Mosaic’s Colonsay potash mine – by Alex MacPherson (Saskatoon StarPhoenix – July 13, 2016)

http://thestarphoenix.com/

Workers at Mosaic Co.’s Colonsay potash mine were “totally blindsided” as they arrived for a shift change and were escorted to boardrooms by private security to be told they were out of a job, a staff representative says.

About 330 workers at the mine 60 kilometres east of Saskatoon received layoff notices on Wednesday. They’ve been told they’re out of a job until Jan. 3, said Mike Pulak, staff representative for United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7656.

“One of our members asked a question, what was the reason, and the reason given was that they have no sales, no international sales, which in our opinion is false,” Pulak said. “Mosaic is part of the Canpotex (international marketing) group with Agrium and (Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan), and if there was no sales, that would mean everybody would be shut down.”

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